It’s the album of all records: more than 100 million copies sold worldwide, 7 singles ranked in the American top 10, 8 Grammy Awards and an exploding career for Michael Jackson, crowned king of pop at only 24 years old, in the early 1980s. Not to mention the horrific music video, one of the longest and most expensive in the history of music, with a budget of half a million dollars, which has since gone into the legend…
Forty years later, Sony Music has decided to hit hard by releasing a collector’s box on November 18, relays the site Billboard. It will include 2 CDs, namely the original disc including cult titles like “Thriller”, “Billie Jean”, “Beat It” or even “P.Y.T” (“Pretty Young Thing”), and a bonus disc with unreleased songs on which Michael Jackson had worked on during the recording of his album – no information has yet leaked on these titles, knowing that a lot of unreleased tracks have been released since the death of the singer and that there would still be some in stock, if according to his big brother Tito.
It must be said that Michael Jackson remains a real goose with golden eggs with 75 million dollars generated on his name and his music in the year 2021, according to figures from Forbes. A windfall mainly garnered by the artist’s trust, still controlled by his mother Katherine, 92, for the benefit of his grandchildren Prince, Paris and Blanket, direct heirs of Michael. In about ten years, the trust has managed to repay the singer’s colossal debts, in particular by selling Sony for $750 million the King of Pop’s extensive music catalog, including many titles from the Beatles, Stevie Wonder , Sting, Taylor Swift, while retaining ownership of the original recordings and songs by Michael Jackson.
And nothing suggests that this post-mortem business will run out of steam: the income is fed by the exploitation of the catalog, advertising uses, the various shows, such as that of the Cirque du Soleil or the recent musical comedy which resumes its hits, without forgetting the next biopic which has just been launched in consultation with the family. In short, the vein seems inexhaustible…
